Faeser wants to “go to law”
Shooting spree fuels gun law debate
03/10/2023, 9:35 p.m
The perpetrator of Hamburg was legally in possession of a weapon. With her, he committed a bloody act in a community center of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Federal Minister of the Interior Faeser puts the German weapons law to the test in view of the devastating killing spree. The Greens are pushing.
After the shooting in Hamburg, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wants to review the draft amendment to the Weapons Act again. You certainly have to “go back to the law and see” whether there are still gaps, she told the ARD “daily topics”. In the weapons law, when applying for a gun owner’s license, it should be checked in future “whether someone is psychologically suitable”. To do this, you need a check with the health authorities, says Faeser. “Above all, we want better networking between the authorities.” This is important, for example, when you change your place of residence.
When such a card is first issued, there should be a medical certificate. From Faeser’s point of view, it would be very difficult to regularly examine all sport shooters in Germany without any information. “Of course, the measures should also be proportionate.” However, the terrible act in Hamburg shows how necessary changes in the weapons law are.
On Thursday evening, 35-year-old Philipp F. shot seven people and himself in a community center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the north of Hamburg. In addition to the fatalities, eight were injured in the shooting, four of them seriously. F. had been in legal possession of a semi-automatic weapon since December 12, 2022. It is also the murder weapon.
A reform of the weapons law by Faeser has so far failed, among other things, due to resistance from the FDP. After the shooting, the second traffic light coalition partner, the Greens, is now putting pressure on. “The terrible killing spree illustrates in a cruel way the great security risk emanating from firearms,” said Greens domestic politician Marcel Emmerich to the news portal “t-online.de”. “It’s clear that fewer private guns are better for public safety than more.”
According to Emmerich, the envisaged gun law reform must pay particular attention to the issues of suitability and reliability and should not be put off. “We’ve been demanding for a long time that, in order to obtain a gun license, a psychological expert report must be required for everyone and not just for people up to the age of 25, as has been the case up to now.”
Anonymous tip had no consequences
In view of the first results of the investigation into the shooting in Hamburg, however, the Greens are also questioning whether the authorities should not have withdrawn Philipp F.’s gun license anyway. “There are still questions about what information was available in which authorities and was shared and how consistently the anonymous tip was followed up,” said Green interior expert Emmerich. “Perhaps an intensive Internet research would have been enough to get information that would have made it possible to confiscate a weapon.”
According to the Hamburg police chief Ralf Martin Meyer, the weapons authority had received an anonymous tip about a possible mental illness from Philipp F. in January. The unknown writer had the goal of checking the behavior and the gun regulations in relation to Philipp F. The unknown person also wrote that F.’s mental illness may not have been medically diagnosed because F. is not seeking medical treatment. According to the letter, F. was particularly angry at religious followers, especially Jehovah’s Witnesses, and at his former employer, Meyer said.
The officials of the weapons authority would have researched further after the tip. At the beginning of February, F. was visited unannounced by two officers from the weapons authority. This was a standard check that took place after an anonymous tip. F. was cooperative, said Meyer. There were no relevant complaints. The legal possibilities had been exhausted.